A Quote by Theodor Adorno

The sublime is only a step removed from the ridiculous.

Theodor Adorno

Quote Topics

Only Ridiculous Step Sublime

Quote Author

Theodor Adorno
German - Sociologist
September 11, 1903 - August 6, 1969

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.

Thomas Paine

There's only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, but there's no road leading from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Lion Feuchtwanger

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Aunt Jane observed, the second time She tumbled off a bus, 'The step is short from the Sublime To the Ridiculous.

Harry Graham

Only by chancing the ridiculous, can I hope for the sublime.

Jay DeFeo

There's one thing that I like about Rome that was stated by Napoleon: that from sublime to pathetic is only one step away. And in Rome there's a constant shifting between sublime and pathetic.

Paolo Sorrentino

What interests me in [Lincoln in the Bardo] is a slight perverse balance between the sublime and the grotesque. Like you could have landed only on the sublime. But my argument is that the sublime couldn't exist without this other half.

Zadie Smith

When I step back from any moment of crisis that I've ever had, I'm always struck by how humor and tragedy can kind of live in the same moment, holding hands together. How life can go from the ridiculous to the sublime to the tragic all in one breath.

Peter Vack

At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime

Derek Mahon

Tottenham ice their sublime cake with the ridiculous.

Peter Drury

A sublime soul can rise to all kinds of greatness, but by an effort; it can tear itself from all bondage, to all that limits and constrains it, but only by strength of will. Consequently the sublime soul is only free by broken efforts.